Five Taiwanese universities on top 100 under 50 years old list

2012/05/31 11:41:41

London, May 30 (CNA) Five institutions from Taiwan have been included in the first Times Higher Education ranking of the world's 100 best universities less than 50 years old, headed by National Sun Yat-sen University in joint 30th place.

The other four are National Taiwan University of Science and Technology in 55th, Yuan Ze University in 70th, Feng Chia University in 89th and National Yang Ming University in 95th.

Institutions from 30 countries and regions are featured on the list, topped by Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea.

Coming in second is Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, followed by Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, University of California, Irvine and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

Rounding out the top 10 are Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, University of California, Santa Cruz, University of York, Lancaster University and University of East Anglia.

Phil Baty, editor of Times Higher Education Rankings, said the results show strong leadership among Asian universities and indicate that they can do "exceptionally well."

"It really sends a message out to the Western world that they have to be very careful because Asia is really focusing on excellence and higher education, and they create things very quickly," Baty said.

It has been found that all the institutions from Taiwan that have made the list have received special funding from the government and are recipients of excellence initiative grants, he said.

"The younger universities in Taiwan can compete on the global stage and they have the potential to be very powerful performers in the future," he added.

The new rankings aim to show which nations are challenging the United States and the United Kingdom as higher education powerhouses, and offers insights into which such institutions could be future world leaders.

The performance of the universities was measured using 13 indicators in five main categories: research, citations, teaching, international outlook and industry income, which refers to a university's ability to reinforce industry with innovation, inventions and consultancy.